Don't Let Go of the Small Town Boy
by writerAngel7
Summary: i know that usually when you see a story about some girl from NJ that knew Kevin, Joe, and Nick, you automatically think, 'boys come back, one of them falls in love w/ her, there's drama, then happily ever after' ...this is SO not one of those stories...


**A/N: I had to get this idea up while I had it… and also, while it was still Valentines Day. It will progress into a story; not a one-shot. Read and enjoy!**

**(song at the beginning: Hands Held High by Linkin Park. Awesome song!)**

**- - -**

"_Turn my mike u__p louder I got to say something_

_Lightweight__s step it aside when we come in_

_Feel it in your ch__est, the syllables get pumping_

_People on the street__, they panic and start running_

_Words on lo__ose leaf sheet complete coming_

_I jump in my mind an__d summon the rhyme I'm dumping_

_Healing the blin__d I promise to let the sun in_

_Sick of the dark ways we march to the drum and…"_

A hand reached out and pressed down on the SNOOZE button on a white, silver, and sage green iH4P alarm clock before retracting under a Victorian patterned duvet.

Five minutes of silence passed.

"_Jump when they say they wanna see jumping_

_Fk that, I wanna see some fist pumping_

_Risk something, take back what's yours_

_Say something you know they might attack you for_

_Cause I'm sick of being treated like I have before_

_Like it's stupid I'm standing for what I'm standing for_

_Like this war's really just a different brand of war_

_Like it doesn't cater the rich and abandon the poor…"_

This time when the hand reached out, it hit the OFF button on the top of the device before its collaborator threw back the duvet, revealing a disheveled, still half-asleep girl who looked to be in her late teens in the Victorian patterned wake.

-

Half an hour later, this same girl brushed past the full length mirror next to her bedroom door, not even bothering to examine her reflection like most girls her age did.

But then again… this girl wasn't like most girls her age.

Half a year to nineteen at five foot seven with fair skin, pitch dark brown waves, and dark teal/silver eyes with an average body build, slightly muscled, she'd appear normal; she wasn't.

She had the matchless mix of punk rock, country, indie, and Broadway on her iPod.

She loved to read morbid romance novels and dramatic tales of historical fiction.

She was known around town for sitting in the back corner of the local Starbucks with her Gibson Doves in Flight acoustic, sheet music and notebook paper spread out on the small circular table in front of her, a Dark Chocolate Peppermint Mocha frapp nearby in the winter and fall, Passion Tea Lemonade in spring and summer.

For reasons unknown, she never took off the guitar pick that lived on the black cord of leather around her neck. It matched her eyes.

She had select friends. People who got her. People who understood and accepted her unparalleled ways of life.

She'd had three very close friends that were like that before. Then they'd up and left once. We'll come back to them later, though.

Her style was often noted as 'punk/preppy,' 'memoirs of Lalaine Vergara-Paras,' and 'hints of The Veronicas.'

She had a father in corporate business and a mother in real estate, leaving both them, her, her thirteen year old brother, and six year old sister well off.

Her personality wasn't that of depression, or the essence of 'the world is out to get me!' It was more… individuality without stretching the boundaries too far. She stepped out the box a lot, but not so much as to ignite a flame of defiance. She kept many emotions to herself without being pent up. She didn't like to talk excessively about what was happening in other peoples' lives, the latest fashions, or boy bands. She was far beyond that. She had a deep sense of reality, lived in the present, and analyzed life. Everything happens for a reason.

This girl was Aurelia Cailiette Colombe.

-

It was mid February of '08.

A normal day as she walked to school. Half an hour from Ridgewood Junction into North Haledon for Eastern Christian High School.

It was twenty five degrees Fahrenheit, the sun rising into half-gray skies, the other half filled with the colors of dawn.

Aura saw the gray.

She usually noted the colors of daybreak instead of the gray skies, but this day was different.

This day was Valentines Day.

The fourth Valentines Day in a row, to be precise, that she had felt somewhat empty.

-

"Hey…"

Aurelia reluctantly tore her eyes away from the sketchbook perched in her lap to look up at the source of the voice, shielding her eyes from the mid-afternoon sun.

Braeden.

"Hey-dy Brady," she sing-song-smirked up at him, scooting over on the bench she was sitting on to make room for him.

He chuckled in response and sat.

"How're you holding up?" he asked, setting his backpack on the ground.

She added a few strokes of the pencil to the sketch she was working on before snapping the book closed and answering, "Per usual for the occasion…"

He nodded, knowing exactly what she meant.

-

Braeden was what Aurelia liked to call 'my norm with a side of 'one of a kind'.'

Meaning, he didn't dress in any particular fashion, he was an A- average student, he wasn't on any popular sports teams, and he worked at the Starbucks on Godwin Avenue near Midland Park, NJ where she liked to hang out and come up with most of her song ideas, but he was into photography and alternative rock and he pole vaulted for the ECHS team.

In part of dressing plain, he was a plain-looking person too. Dark brown hair, gray eyes, fair skin, average height, and lanky but slightly muscled from pole vaulting since he was ten.

-

"Oh morbid love-day… why do those whom plunge themselves into pink and floral delight retire their proper sense to the hands of a guy in a diaper?"

Braedan and Aurelia burst into laughter, recognizing the melodramatic sarcasm that could come from none other than Jessenia Marley.

-

Jessenia was Aurelia's 'out of the norm completely' friend.

The girl's mother was a fashion designer and loved to use her for a live mannequin, meaning Jess was a model too, not that she minded a bit.

Jean Marley was big on a style that Aurelia and Brae could only describe as modern-peasant-meets-valley-girl.

Jess danced modern jazz, lyrical, and ballet on point, leaving her stick-thin-lanky-yet-still-somehow-curvy figure lightly muscled.

She was blonde with one brown eye and one blue eye, five foot nine.

She wanted to go into theater, thus her obsession with throwing Shakespeare vocabulary into regular conversation and dramatic bouts.

She also had a sense of sarcasm like none other.

-

Jess righted her brown, cherry-patterned Louis Vuitton suitcase-backpack into a vertical position on the walkway in front of the bench Aurelia and Brae were sitting on and perched herself on top of the luggage.

She sported black ankle length leggings, a calf-length patchwork peasant skirt, the patches ranging in color between cream and Moroccan gold, a black tank top under a royal purple wrap, bell sleeved top, and purple, silk, beaded flats.

A Jean Marley classic.

"Because they believe that the guy in the diaper will magically make someone fall in love with them," Aurelia answered before she and Brae pretended to gag in unison.

Jess smirk-scowled and giggled at her friends.

After that bout ended, they watched as classmates and underclassmen meandered around the courtyard.

Many held carnations or roses or daisies that had been sent and received. The school did it every year.

As Aurelia watched, she remembered a rose that had been given to her when she had been a freshman… a vibrant red rose…

…it was now a rose head, pressed between the blank, creamy pages of a green, leather-bound tome in the back of her closet. She hadn't looked at in four years… but she felt it there in the back of her closet every Valentines Day since.

Two cards were taped in the tome on the same page, and Dove chocolate heart wrappers with those Valentines Day messages inside too, the foil pressed flat under the lamination they were suppressed by.

Aurelia flipped open her sketchbook again as Brae and Jess began their own conversation.

'Valentines Day…' she thought absently, looking down at the charcoal sketch of three boys. Only the rear view of them was shown… and they were walking down a road…

…away from Wyckoff…

…away from all the memories the four of them shared…

…away from Aurelia…

'Yeah… happy Valentines Day…' she thought miserable, slamming the book closed and shoving it into her bag before slipping into her friends' conversation.

- - -

**A/N: I know it's not a lot, but this was sort of rushed because I wanted to get it up before February 14****th**** was officially over. Please review your comments, opinions, and if needed, constructive criticism!**

**-Blaek Reigh**


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